Bernard Matthews invited me to come up with a family fun meal with one of their fresh breaded products so I nipped to my local supermarket and picked up a tray of their 6 fresh breaded turkey steaks for only £3! How economical is that?

They are incredibly easy to cook under the grill or in the oven and this time I chose the oven method for 35 minutes as I wanted to serve them with roasted summer vegetables and they are cooked in the oven too.

For summer roasted vegetables I chose a selection of courgettes, peppers (use yellow and orange) red onion, baby tomatoes, spring onions and basil. Drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil and pop in the oven at 220C for 30 – 35 minutes until they soften and begin to colour.

The Bernard Matthews turkey steaks go in for the last 15 minutes until golden and voilà your meal is ready.

Husband had a spoonful of coleslaw with his and some potato salad too.

Other ideas included grilling the steaks and serving sliced into pieces on a salad.

You could try serving the steaks with a pizzaiolo sauce which is a tomato sauce with olives and mozzarella added at the last minute so it melts in the sauce.

Another idea we have tried recently to make a great meal for the kids was Turkey nugget kebabs. This time using some of the the Bernard Matthews frozen turkey pieces. By serving this regular meal in a slightly different way peaked the imagination and the kids loved them. They are simple and quick to do and great for playdates too

Turkey nugget kebabs

Cook the Bernard Matthews frozen turkey pieces as directed on the packet. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly.

Whilst cooking take one long mozzarella and cut into pieces across the width, then cut up some yellow peppers. I had basil leaves to hand and baby tomatoes.

Place the food on the kebab stick in a colourful manner and serve!

There are many other ways you can use your Bernard Matthews products, how do you use yours?

The challenge was to go to the supermarket buy the following Bird’s Eye products and come up with something new. You may have seen Katie Bryson who writes Feeding Boys and a Fire Fighter on the tv making fish finger in pitta bread, well along those lines.

The products we were asked to play with were

wholemeal fish fingers – new addition to the line up

Fish fingers

Burgers

Chicken grills

Peas (I am a huge fan of peas)

Here’s what I came up with

Wholesome monsters with yucky peas

Of course the peas aren’t yucky – it’s just the monster who thinks they are. I mixed our peas with chopped cherry tomatoes. The girls were delighted when they saw the presentation of this meal – I know I am quite the artist aren’t I?

Bruschetta fish fingers

I chose the wholemeal fish finger as I wanted to try it and I love this idea for the kids. I also wanted it to look trendy and posh looking, something you’d be proud to serve at a party but a little bit quirky.

I used an avocado mashed up with a little squeeze of lemon and chopped spring onions in it as a base, laid my fish finger on top and then topped with a triangle of mature Spanish cheese, oh and the tiniest basil leaf I could find.

Pea, ham and chicken risotto

This one is good for all the family but the twins really enjoyed it as much as I did. I used some cooked chicken grill steaks and chopped them into bite size pieces, I added some ham I had in the fridge to use up and towards the end of cooking I added lots of delicious Bird’s Eye frozen peas and fresh basil leaves. A cheeky spoonful of low fat soft cheese stirred through at the end and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese on top and job’s done. Buon appetito!

Chicken pizzaiola

Just the best way to serve chicken ever in my book and very simple to make. Whilst your chicken grills are in the oven, fry some onion and chopped peppers in a pan to soften, add some chopped tomatoes from a tin and a few black olives chopped up too. Allow to cook slowly. Then at the end add some chopped mozzarella to the sauce and stir to make sure it doesn’t clump together. Serve ladled on top of your chicken grill.

Cheeseburger ciabattas

Cut your ciabatta slices and spread with avocado mash as mentioned above or make a spicy tomato spread up with a pinch of chilli pepper ;) As your burger is finishing add a slice or two of cheese to the top and allow to melt, place on your ciabatta et voila!

Fish finger croutons on salad

Tart up your every day salad with some freshly cooked fish fingers diced into crunchy croutons, mmmm. I may even add them to soups on colder days too.

Chicken cous cous salad

Another great lunch time idea was chicken cous cous salad. Cous cous is so easy, you just add boiling water and stir, if you want to flavour it up you can add herbs, spices or your favourite dip. I added all of these ingredients and enjoyed a fabulous salad.

No more boring peas

Why not add something to them? I added some chopped spring onion and some torn basil leaves to this meal and it really worked well plus it didn’t take any time at all.

One thing I really enjoyed whilst living up a mountain in Italy was the arrival of the spring as towards the end of winter the grass would be very brown and the land tired and wet as the snow slowly melted.

Then all of a sudden the temperatures would raise, the trees would turn green and flowers would start to appear all over the fields, a really pretty moment.

It was also the season of asparagus and restaurants would be full of wonderful seasonal recipes, asparagus risotto, asparagus and eggs – a huge favourite and plenty of other creative ideas like my Jersey potato salad.

I had lost my cooking mojo this past couple of months but the sight of fresh asparagus in the supermarket was enough for me to want to buy it and make something. I went with a quiche as it’s handy to have for my lunches throughout the week and came up with Asparagus, pea and pastrami Quiche.

As a change from the normal recipe I have used some natural yogurt in the egg mix and this has made a firmer quiche plus an extra flavour that compliments the asparagus very well.

A tasty seasonal quiche using asparagus and peas with the addition of Pastrami chopped up finely. Perfect for lunches and picnics too.

Author: Marianne Weekes

Recipe type: Lunch

Cuisine: British

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 pack of ready to roll shortcrust pastry

flour to dust surfaces and rolling pin

poppy seeds (optional)

bunch of asparagus boiled

200g frozen peas

200g sliced pastrami

3 large eggs (4 small)

150g natural yogurt

350g milk

salt and pepper

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Roll out the pastry and line a pie dish, sprinkle the base with the poppy seeds and push lightly into the pastry.

Place a layer of foil inside and put baking beans on top. Bake blind in the oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the baking beans and put to one side.

In the meantime, boil the asparagus to al dente, remember it will be cooking further in the oven. towards the end add the frozen peas to the saucepan and once back to boiling, turn off and drain well. Asparagus tends to hold on to a lot of water so leave to drain for a while.

Break the eggs into a jug and beat them well, add the yogurt and beat well making sure there are no lumps. Add the milk and mix well.

Season well with salt and pepper.

Cut the asparagus in half, keep the florets to one side for decoration and chop the other half into small pieces, scatter these and the peas over the base.

Dice the pastrami and scatter around the quiche base. Keep a handful back for a final scatter.

Place the asparagus florets in a fan around the quiche and scatter over the remainder of the pastrami.

Pour over the egg mixture and season the top.

Place in the preheated oven at 180C for 35- 40 minutes, touch the surface to test it should be firm and spring under your touch. If watery give it an extra five minutes. Done when the top is golden brown.

The challenge this time was to cook a meal from scratch using as many frozen products as possible. The British Frozen Food Federation have set up a site CoolCookery.co.uk and want to spread the word how easy it is to cook using frozen foods. They want us to think out of the box without resorting to fish fingers and chips when the word frozen is mentioned so they sent me a voucher for Iceland and off I went on my frozen mission thinking of swordfish recipes.

Preconceived ideas

I had thought of Iceland as being solely frozen ready meals and therefore had never stepped inside the door before. However I was very pleasantly surprised because along side finding many ready meals there are freezers and freezers full of frozen food. I bought some lamb chops, swordfish loins, venison burgers, sliced green beans, diced onions, king prawns and a large bag of seafood selection which will be perfect for my Italian fish stew recipe or my slow cooker Tomato Fish Curry

Did you know?

Frozen food often retains nutrition better than fresh. Quick-freezing locks in freshness and nutritional goodness, usually within hours of harvest, catch or slaughter.

Frozen food can help reduce waste. They last longer in the freezer, which means you can keep to hand the ingredients you need, using the right amount and saving the rest for another day. Research has shown frozen food can save families up to £250 a year.

Practical and easy

Of course it’s not only Iceland that sells frozen products, all of the top supermarkets have lots of frozen fresh products in store so do keep an eye out. Having used the frozen diced onions (89p) in this recipe and having plenty over I shall make sure I have them to hand always. No more tears and badly chopped onions. I also want to use the chopped swede as that’s always such a hard vegetable to prepare.

Frozen vegetables – On this occasion I used the frozen sliced green beans (89p) they work out a lot cheaper than fresh and as you can see from the photo the colour is great and the texture was perfect too. Takes less time to boil as well.

Frozen potatoes – Rather than use chips I bought a bag of potato slices (89p) Just as simple to cook and ready in about 25 mins.

The main ingredient in this recipe is swordfish, it’s like tuna steak. The £7 bag had four portions in it each one weighing between 170 – 200g which is perfect. I added a £3 bag of King Prawns at the end of the recipe which may have been a slight exaggeration but you all know my husband and his appetite by now. The recipe is very simple as it cooks itself in the oven, my only note is that although on the bag it said 20 – 25 mins in the oven ours took a LOT longer.

The pickled red cabbage was part of a homemade Christmas hamper we received as a gift this year and was delicious, find out how to pickle your own vegetables on Mari’s World.

Disclosure: I’m working with BritMums and Coolcookery.co.uk highlighting the versatility, economy and nutritional benefits of cooking with frozen food. All opinions are my own. For recipes and ideas visit http://bit.ly/coolcookery

I am going to have to perfect the way this recipe looks in my photographs but boy is it a tasty one. If you like chicken, bacon and stilton this will be right up your street. It’s a recipe I’ve been making for years and when I lived in Italy I substituted the Stilton with Gorgonzola and used pancetta to wrap around the chicken. This time I used a red wine for the sauce rather than the white and it gave a strong tasty gravy to serve alongside. Find out more about cooking with wine in my Lindeman’s post.

For this recipe you’re going to have to bash the chicken breasts so they are wide and flat, this way you can spread the Stilton butter on one side and roll the breasts up. They can then be covered in bacon and cooked.

Chicken bacon stilton roulades are very straightforward and perfect for entertaining too as they cook on the stove for 35-40 minutes allowing you to get everything else ready for dinner time.